joshua landis, universe of oklahoma and his blog is also back with us. we can go to moscow and to our correspondent joshua. joshua, did sergey's announcement of putting the chemical weapons under international supervision catch people by surprise? >> absolutely. the syrian counterpart held a press conference this afternoon, late this morning actually where he reiterated the position that we have heard several times before about the need to find a diplomatic or political resolution without really offering specifics of how that might work or what the mechanism would be. warning against the danger of the u.s. led military strike, denying the syrian regime had anything to do with the chemical attack on august 21 and so on. the familiar talking points we have had. later this afternoon, with little warning, journalists were invited to the foreign ministry for a briefing. it was at that press conference where he puts forward this idea that he just laid out for the chemical arsenal of syria to be put under control. certainly politicians and officials in washingt